Where public money meets public companies

Two public records say things about a listed company that its earnings call will not: what the federal government pays it, and what it pays to be heard in Washington. Both are filed, both are free, and neither is easy to tie to a ticker. This is that tie.

A third record sits alongside them: what the people running the government trade for their own accounts. The President and Senate-confirmed appointees file those disclosures with the Office of Government Ethics, not with Congress, which is why their names never surface in a Congressional feed.

Companies are matched to contracting entities and lobbying clients by name and registered identifier, and every match is reviewed by a person before it counts. Where we have no match, we say so instead of showing a zero.

What these numbers are not

• A company appears only once we have matched it to a government record. An absent company usually means an unmatched name, not an absence of activity.
• Subsidiaries file under their own names. We roll up only the entities a person has confirmed, so a parent’s total can understate the group.
• A company’s own lobbying report already includes what it paid outside firms. Adding the two together would double count, so we never do.
• Most executive-branch filings are released only through a records request naming the requester, so they are listed but unread. A short trade list can mean an unread filing, not a quiet year.
• None of this is a trading signal or investment advice. It is public record, presented as public record.

• Congressional trades
• All stocks
• Methodology